Baby Bax­tor first fu­neral

BABY Bax­tor Gow­land was born in the wake of the first earth­quake that shook Christchurch.

The five-month-old New Zealan­der was trag­i­cally killed in an­other, more de­struc­tive quake to rip through the city last week.

Dressed in black, with light blue rib­bons pinned to their shirts, hun­dreds of mourn­ers turned out at a fu­neral home west of the badly dam­aged CBD yes­ter­day to farewell the tiny vic­tim - the first earth­quake-re­lated fu­neral to be held. Bax­tor is one of just eight peo­ple po­lice have been able to iden­tify fol­low­ing last Tues­day’s quake.

‘‘ Bax you are for­ever in our hearts we will al­ways love you xo,’’ his fa­ther Shaun McKenna wrote on a Face­book tribute page ded­i­cated to his son.

‘‘ To the lit­tle man who made ev­ery­one smile who met him, may you look down upon us and help us re­mem­ber your beau­ti­ful face.’’